Today’s Wordlive session is hugely appropriate for Dock-World – from the opening question (Guess how many Christian denominations there are worldwide. Hundreds? Thousands?) through to a really challenging response to a beautiful passage from Romans. The Dock heartily recommends Wordlive every day, but especially worth checking out today!

The link is here.  (You can navigate to Friday 5th Aug by clicking on the date if you want to track down this specific reading.)

And by the way, what’s your guess in answer to that question?  The answer is… 33,000! Surely something’s wrong…

Business Plans are where it’s all at! Did any fellow Apprentice-addicts notice that despite how good they might’ve been at selling (go Jim!), closing lucrative deals (go Helen!), being nice (go Tom!) or saying “Yeah?” (go Natasha!), the final of the Apprentice this year completely rested on the quality of the Business Plans which the contestants had prepared before the process all started?

It was a good month to be launching The Dock’s very own Business Plan.  The Dock began with creativity, conversation, faith, excitement – but it’s right and responsible that those things are tied to clear-eyed practical reality and thorough research.  The Dock Business Plan is an attempt to marry bold vision and common sense – to suggest that the time is right, the sums add up, and the foundation is solid.

So – welcome to the Story of the Dock Business Plan:

If you’d like your very own copy (it’s even prettier in the flesh!), please don’t hesitate to get in touch (through the ‘Contact Us’ tab on the website) – or you can download a PDF version here (though be warned, it’s a big file – make sure you have a fast internet connection!)

So let me know what you think – all feedback gratefully received…

(and PS – the Business Plan is living proof of the difference a team makes. The first two scrappy little booklets were solo efforts – whereas the beautiful, glossy Business Plan is the work of a hugely-appreciated team. Special shout-outs to Chris Hollies (who wrote it) and Andi Mac (who designed it). Not All By Myself any more!)

A couple of links for you today – one sad, one funny and thought-provoking!

Sad one first…   A report on the BBC today about the unveiling of a headstone for the ‘Titanic teenager’ – a boy called Samuel Scott, who was one of the 8 people killed during the 3-year construction of Titanic in the Belfast docks.  Believe it or not, that figure was considered to be a pretty light casualty record at the time – 8 fatal accidents, out of a 15,000-strong workforce over 3 years, wasn’t bad going in those pre Health-And-Safety days…

Samuel was a ‘catcher’ – a vital part of the 5-man team involved in every single one of Titanic’s 3,000,000 rivets.  After the heater had thrown the red-hot rivet from the furnace to the rivet team working on the ship’s hull, it was his job to catch the rivet in a metal tin, and then take it out with tongs and hold it up to the panel, ready for the massive hammers of the riveters to get to work.  The catchers on the docks in 1912 were often young boys of 13 or 14 – so Samuel was one of many involved in this dangerous, demanding work.

So much of the Belfast Titanic story involves moving at least some of the focus from the iceberg and the cold Atlantic, to the skill, risk, sweat and toil of those 15,000 men who built a wonder of the world.  So Samuel’s story is one worth remembering – I wonder what he would have thought if he knew we would be talking about him 100 years later?

Which leads neatly(-ish) to the second of today’s links – this article on the Onion website (Man Watches Movie Alone On Laptop) really made me laugh, but also made me think about the impact our lives make – will we, like Samuel, be remembered for anything significant in 100 years’ time?  What kind of difference am I making with, in Bill Hybels’ phrase, my “one and only life”?

UPDATE:  …and a picture from some friends who were at the service today in the City Cemetery to unveil Samuel Scott’s gravestone:

So, have you been on the Titanic Walking Tour yet?  Since April, every Friday and Saturday I’ve been proudly wearing the snazzy red jacket of a Walking Tour guide, as part of the team of dedicated Titanoraks showing visitors and tourists from all over the world around the incredibly rich Titanic heritage which still survives in the Belfast docks.

I’m loving every minute of it!  Every group is different, and every group contains some characters – and some of the stories, anecdotes and personal connections to the old docks are fascinating.  In the group in the picture to the right, the chap in the blue was a friendly, good-natured German tourist who was trying to teach me the correct pronunciation of the word “Krupp” (the German manufacturer who built the yellow cranes).  (German tourist : “It’s pronounced Krupp”.  Me: “Krupp.”   German tourist: “No, no, no.  Krupp.”  Me: “Krupp.”  German tourist: “No, like this – KRUPP!”  Me: “KRUPP!”  etc etc.)

Over the last few weeks, many groups have been composed of more locals than tourists, and (while it’s great that people from all over the world are travelling to Belfast) it’s fantastic to see Norn Irish people start to take real interest and pride in some of our most evocative heritage.   We’ve kept our heads down about Titanic for the last 100 years, while the rest of the world tapped into the huge interest (and made a correspondingly huge fortune) from any connection to the most famous ship in history.  Time we started making the most of our Titanic past – especially since (as we tell everyone, every time, on the walking tours, until they can repeat it like a mantra) She Was All Right When She Left Here…

So on the tour a few weeks ago the group was joined by some roving reporters from the NI Tourist Board, who have now produced this rather brill little video.  (They also brought along two models to be pretend tourists, just in case the group that day weren’t pretty enough.) The first half of the vid is about the Titanic Boat Tour (which is also highly recommended) and then in the second half it’s over to the inimitable Mr Colin Cobb (and you’ll see some footage of Yours Truly in full tour guide mode, complete with extravagant hand gestures).

Another first on the Dock Walk this week – the first time we had to have a stop-off at the beginning for everyone to apply suncream! It was scorching out in the TQ today, the sun glinting on the sea as we listened to Bible readings and worship songs under the warm sun.

It has been a terrible, sad weekend on the world stage.  The tragic events in Norway have shown the awful human cost of extremism and fundamentalism, while the death of the massively talented Amy Winehouse has shown the human cost of reckless hedonism.  Our Wordlive reading this week told the story of Jesus’ disciples encountering a fierce storm as they travelled across the lake; their reactions reflected that helpless sense of events slipping out of control – of human beings powerless to stop the storms of a dangerous world.

Out in the sun-blasted TQ, we reflected on the storms we all face – individual, national, international…  It is a dangerous and sometimes dark world.  But we face the same choice as the disciples: do we keep trying to cope, with our own skills, strength and resources – or do we turn to the storm-stiller who is with us in the boat…?